08/20/2026
Voter ID Shouldn't Be a Partisan Issue
We use identification throughout our everyday lives.
We use ID to board an airplane, conduct certain financial transactions, enter secure facilities, purchase age-restricted products, and complete many other activities where establishing someone's identity matters.
So why has the idea of verifying someone's identity before voting become such a partisan issue?
It shouldn't be.
Voting is one of the most consequential rights we exercise as American citizens. The people we elect write our laws, enforce our laws, levy taxes, approve billions of dollars in public spending, appoint people to important government positions, oversee our schools and communities, and make decisions that can affect our lives for decades.
Ensuring that the person casting a ballot is actually the registered voter they claim to be should therefore be viewed as a basic safeguardânot as a Republican or Democratic position.
And despite the political rhetoric surrounding voter ID, Americans aren't nearly as divided on this question as you might think.
According to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey, 83% of Americans favor requiring voters to show government-issued photo identification. That includes 95% of Republicans and 71% of Democrats. [1]
That's not a partisan fringe position. That's an overwhelming majority of Americans and substantial majorities of both parties.
Most states already have some form of voter ID requirement
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 36 states currently request or require voters to show some form of identification at the polls. The remaining 14 states and Washington, D.C., use other methods to verify voter identity, frequently by comparing a voter's signature or other identifying information against information already on file. [2]
So the real policy discussion shouldn't be whether voter identity matters. Every state has some mechanism for determining that the person voting is entitled to cast that ballot.
The debate is over what that verification should look like.
The Supreme Court has recognized election integrity as a legitimate government interest
In Crawford v. Marion County Election Board (2008), the United States Supreme Court upheld Indiana's voter photo-ID requirement against the facial constitutional challenge presented in that case.
The Court recognized legitimate state interests that included preventing voter fraud, modernizing election procedures and protecting public confidence in the integrity of elections. [3]
That last point is especially important.
An election system doesn't only need to be secure. The public needs to have confidence that it is secure.
But there are legitimate concerns about voter ID
If we're going to have an intelligent discussion about this issue, we also need to acknowledge the arguments on the other side.
Critics correctly point out that strict voter photo-ID requirements primarily address in-person voter impersonation, rather than every possible form of election misconduct. Even the dissent in Crawford emphasized that photo ID does not address things such as absentee-ballot fraud, vote buying, ballot miscounting or misconduct by election officials. [4]
There are also legitimate concerns about eligible voters who may have difficulty obtaining acceptable identification.
A U.S. Government Accountability Office review found that studies estimated possession of selected state-issued IDs among registered voters at approximately 84% to 95%, with differences among demographic groups. [5]
The research concerning turnout has also been mixed. Of 10 studies reviewed by the GAO, five found no statistically significant effect on turnout, four found decreases and one found an increase. The GAO's own analysis of Kansas and Tennessee found greater turnout decreases after changes to those states' ID requirements compared with selected comparison states. [5]
Those concerns shouldn't be dismissed. They should be addressed.
We can protect access AND integrity
This is where I believe there should be common ground.
If government requires identification to vote, then government should make an acceptable identification free and reasonably accessible to every eligible citizen who needs one.
There should also be reasonable procedures for legitimate circumstances involving lost identification, elderly or disabled voters, religious objections and other situations where an otherwise eligible voter cannot present the normal identification.
Election workers should be properly trained, requirements should be applied consistently, and voters should receive plenty of notice explaining what is required.
The objective should never be making it unnecessarily difficult for an eligible American citizen to vote.
The objective should be:
Make it easy for every eligible citizen to voteâand difficult for anyone who isn't eligible to cast a ballot.
Those objectives are not mutually exclusive.
Voter ID is also only one part of election integrity
We shouldn't pretend that showing an identification card solves every election-security concern.
It doesn't.
Election integrity also means maintaining accurate voter-registration records, securing voting systems, maintaining appropriate ballot chain-of-custody procedures, properly training election workers, conducting appropriate audits, providing meaningful observation and establishing transparent procedures for investigating legitimate questions.
Likewise, supporting election integrity shouldn't mean automatically assuming fraud occurred whenever our preferred candidate loses.
Confidence in elections has to be based upon evidence, transparency, safeguards and consistent rulesânot partisan assumptions.
But the fact that a particular form of misconduct may be uncommon isn't necessarily an argument against reasonable preventative controls. We use safeguards throughout government, business and technology precisely because we want problems to remain uncommon.
This should not belong to either political party
Republicans should acknowledge that no eligible citizen should lose his or her ability to vote because of an unnecessarily burdensome identification requirement.
Democrats should acknowledge that verifying voter identity and protecting public confidence in our elections are legitimate governmental interests.
And both sides should acknowledge something much more fundamental:
The right to vote is too important for the integrity of the process to become just another partisan issue.
Think about what we're actually doing when we vote.
We're choosing people who can write laws, enforce laws, levy taxes, spend public money, appoint officials, oversee public institutions and make decisions affecting millions of people's lives.
If we're willing to verify identity for far less consequential activities, I don't believe it is unreasonable to have reasonable identity verification surrounding something as important as choosing our government.
We should be able to support two principles simultaneously:
Every eligible citizen should be able to vote.
Every eligible citizen should have confidence that every lawful vote is protected.
That's not Republican.
That's not Democratic.
That's good government.
SOURCES
[1] Pew Research Center â âMost Americans Back Expanded Early Voting, Voting by Mail, Voter IDâ (August 22, 2025)
Pew Research Center source
[2] National Conference of State Legislatures â âVoter ID Laws,â updated April 24, 2026; and âVoter Verification Without ID Documentsâ
NCSL Voter ID Laws
NCSL Voter Verification Without ID Documents
[3] U.S. Supreme Court â Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008)
Cornell Legal Information Institute â Crawford decision
[4] Crawford v. Marion County Election Board â Justice Souter's dissent discussing the scope of photo-ID requirements
Cornell Legal Information Institute â Crawford dissent
[5] U.S. Government Accountability Office â âElections: Issues Related to State Voter Identification Laws,â GAO-14-634
U.S. GAO report
